[Advaita-l] Ramana Yoga Sutras (3)

[S Jayanarayanan]

(Continued from previous post)
 
II. ‘hridi visa’ Enter the heart
 
1. The word ‘heart’ here is used in its verbal sense. It
means ‘that which carries away’, ‘that which engulfs’, ‘that
which digests everything into itself’. The meaning is that the
world, and consequently ideas of it, submerge into the heart.
Logically, the ideas of the world must submerge into that
from which they originally sprung. In effect, the base on
which thoughts arise and into which they finally subside is
the heart. Really it is indefinable, for a definition is a significant
distinctive statement of the characteristics of a thing. All
these are included in the realm of ideas which do not appear
there, where the heart alone is.
 
Therefore, the heart mentioned here should exclude
the following definitions of the heart given in various schools
of philosophy:
 
a) It does not mean the blood-pumping organ in the
body.
 
b) It does not mean the ‘anahata chakra’
mentioned in Yoga. In the Yoga Sastra it is said that there
is a conduit pipe for the flow of the vital prana inside the
spinal column consisting of two canals that are contained
in a sheath. Through one of them, the ‘purva sushumna’,
the kundalini power flows upwards when forced by the
practice of Yoga to these centres. And when the power
inheres in each chakra, various mystic powers are attained.
The fourth chakra up the sushumna is called the ‘anahata’
and is at about the level of the sternum. Evidently, this is
not the heart mentioned or intended here.
 
c) Neither is it the Atman. Bhagavan explained the
hridayam (heart) as consisting of two words—‘hrid’ plus
‘ayam’. This is the‘hrid’ that is the Atman. It is said above
in the first aphorism that to reach the Atman one must
enter the heart.
 
d) Nor is it the heart mentioned by Bhagavan as being
on the right side of the chest between the two nipples.
That is the point according to Bhagavan where first the
‘Chit sakti’ (knowledge power) enters into the body of a
being. That power goes to the head (sahasrara through
the amrita nadi, and comes down through the sushumna,
giving us the experiences of the various words).
 
e) It is not the heart which signifies the center of
emotions.
 
All these definitions must be eschewed before the exact
significance of the word ‘hrid’ can be comprehended.
‘Hrid’ really means a state of conciousness and force. It
is from this sea of consciousness that during the wakeful
state thoughts arise, and into this that they again subside.
 
(Continued in next post)